CARNAVAL 2000 IS HERE!
By Jackie Peterson
Carnival Mazatlán -- billed to run March 2-7 -- is starting a day early, thanks to a change of date for the announcing of the winners of the painting and literature competitions. Never a mere time for fun and games, Mazatlán's carnival has traditionally offered events of a cultural nature along with the awarding of annual prizes for writing, poetry, and art. In keeping with these less frivolous aspects of carnival, each of the awards ceremonies has become a showcase emphasizing the arts as it honors the respective winners. This year some of the pageantry will be dedicated to the dance, for the National Dance Company is coming from México City for two different performances, bringing with it such stars as Irma Morales, Raul Fernandez, Laura Morelos and Tihui Gutierrez, in her farewell tour as prima ballerina with the company. First of the artistic events is a double feature that happens the first day of March. It begins with the awarding of the Fifth Annual Antonio López Sáenz Prize for painting at the Mazatlán Art Museum, corner of Sixto Osuna and Venustiano Carranza, one block behind Olas Altas. An exhibition of the paintings that were entered in this year's competition, with the first and second place winners given the most prominent display, will be inaugurated at 6 p.m.. Browsers in the museum's galleries can later head four blocks away to the Angela Peralta Theater, where the traditional Evening of the Arts begins at 8:30 p.m. The show will take the form of "Don Quijote" a spectacular ballet performed by the National Dance Company. The four-act ballet will be accompanied by the Carlos Chavez Orchestra under the baton of Enrique Patron de Ruedas. He's the Mazatlán-born conductor of the Bellas Artes Opera Orchestra in México City, and he frequently returns to his hometown to lend his talents to various carnival events. During the evening both the first and second-place winners of the painting competition and the winner of the nationwide Mazatlán Prize for Literature will receive their awards. Thursday's event is a freebie -- the crowning of the King of Joy at the city's most familiar landmark, the Fisherman's Monument on Avenida del Mar at the corner of Gutierrez Najera. The Millennium Carnival's King is Julio Preciado, a celebrity both nationally and locally. He started his singing career as vocalist with this area's oldest band, Los Recodos, and he subsequently broke away to do his own appearances and recordings. He'll be crowned in a public show to include one or more other nationally known personalities. On Friday evening the entire group from the production at the Angela Peralta Theater -- 75 dancers and 75 musicians -- will have moved

from the historic theater in Old Mazatlán to the Teodoro Mariscal Baseball Stadium for the carnival tradition known as the Juegos Florales or Flower Games. Here, where the Clemencia Isaura Prize for Poetry will be awarded, it will be framed by the production of "Carmina Burana," set to music written by the German composer Carl Orff. This spectacular will take place on a panoramic stage where the dancers are joined by the combined voices of the Angela Peralta and the Culiacan Chorale, combining to make up a 70-voice Sinaloa Chorale under the direction of Antonio Gonzales. While most everybody knows the story of the Man of La Mancha embodied in the plot of "Don Quijote," perhaps some viewers will not find "Carmina Burana" as familiar. It's a work inspired by the 12th-century tales of some learned but rather bawdy monks, wandering intellectuals who did not allow their monkish cowls to keep them from enjoying such earthly pleasures as wine, women and song. The manuscripts left behind by this mischievous group inspired Orff to compose music which, in this version, has been broken into 25 colorful scenes capturing moods of joy, lust, drunkenness, dissipation and the celebration of nature, among others, which are played out in song and dance. For arts lovers, this mammoth production may well outshine the more popular ballpark pageants in which the Queen of Carnival and the Juvenile Queen of Carnival are crowned. Here, nationally known stars of a more currently popular type will appear. Tickets for "Don Quijote" at the Angela Peralta Theater cost 120, 100, 80 and 50 pesos, while tickets for "Carmina Burana" run 120, 100, 80 and 25 pesos. All tickets for carnival events are being sold at the kiosk in front of the Codetur (carnival organizing committee) offices, Calle Aleman at the corner of Francisco Villa. Tickets for the event at the theater also are on sale at the theater box office, to the right of the entrance, on Calle Carnaval near the corner of Constitucion, while tickets for the baseball park pageants are also on sale at City Hall, the building in front of the cathedral downtown, at Plaza Ley del Mar, and at this writing arrangements also were being made to sell them at the Gran Plaza branch of Fabricas de Francia. On March 18 the local dance school Miura will spotlight the best of its dancers in an annual performance of flamenco that is always lively and entertaining. All performances at the Angela Peralta Theater begin at 8 p.m. with the exception of "Don Quijote," which starts at 8:30. At this writing not all details about ticket prices were available, but you can ask at the theater boxoffice or watch for posters and fliers announcing these events.

 

 

 

 

 

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